Curtis Sliwa Biography
Curtis Sliwa is an American activist, founder, and CEO of the Guardian Angels, as well as a radio talk show host and politician. He is the Republican nominee for the 2021 New York City mayoral election. Sliwa is the founder and chief executive officer of the Guardian Angels, a non-profit organization dedicated to unarmed crime prevention. Despite founding the Guardian Angels, he was nite manager of the McDonald’s restaurant on Fordham Road in the Bronx.
Curtis attended Brooklyn Prep, a Jesuit high school from which he was expelled, and Canarsie High School, a public high school in Brooklyn, New York City. Brown University granted Sliwa a half scholarship to study political science. In his youth, Curtis worked as a delivery boy for the New York Daily News, earning the title of “Newsboy of the Year” and a trip to the White House after saving several people from a burning building while on his route.
Curtis Sliwa Guardian Angels
In May 1977, Curtis created the Magnificent 13, a group dedicated to combating violence and crime on the New York City Subway as the city was experiencing a crime wave. The group grew and, in 1979, it was renamed the Guardian Angels. The group’s actions brought strong reactions, both positive and negative.
Membership of the Guardian Angels showed that 80% of them were either black or of Hispanic ethnicity. Moreover, unarmed, the group required training in karate and fulfillment of legal requirements for citizen arrest for all members before they were to be deployed.
Mayor Ed Koch, a critic of Sliwa and of the organization, launched an investigation into the Guardian Angels, which, according to The Washington Post, proved so positive that the Guardian Angels will soon be awarded some sort of official status. Then Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo, who was a rare early advocate of the organization, is quoted as saying that they are a better expression of morality than our city deserves.
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In addition, in 1992, Curtis admitted that the head of the Guardian Angels faked heroic subway rescues for fame. He also agreed to claim falsely that three off-duty transit police officers had kidnaped him.
In the early 1980s, Curtis expanded his operations to Buffalo, and he was a vocal opponent of local police policies and tactics. An incident involving Guardian Angel member Frank Melvin, who was fatally shot by a Newark police officer after mistaking the unzipping of his jacket to expose his Guardian Angels badge for a threat, occurred in December 1981. Sliwa stated that the racially motivated shooting of Melvin, an African American, was carried out by a white officer who was shielded by the police department, rather than the Hispanic officer named as the shooter. Both cops were absolved of charges in Melvin’s death by an Essex County grand jury.
Curtis Sliwa Murder Attempt
On June 19, 1992, Curtis was kidnaped and shot by two gunmen after entering a stolen taxi in Manhattan. The taxi picked up Sliwa near his home in the East Village, and a gunman hiding in the front passenger seat jumped up and fired several gunshots, hitting him in the groin and legs. The kidnapping was foiled when Sliwa leaped from the front window of the moving cab and escaped. He underwent surgery for internal injuries and leg wounds.
Federal authorities charged John A. Gotti, the son of Gamboni family chief John Gotti, with attempted murder and a slew of additional crimes. Prosecutors alleged Gotti was enraged over comments Curtis made about Gotti’s father on his radio show. However, three successive jurors were unable to agree to convict Gotti on any of the accusations against him, and the charges were dismissed after three attempts to try him, the most recent on September 20, 2005.
Jurors, later on, told a reporter they did believe he had a duty in Sliwa’s shooting. However, prosecutors denied re-trying Gotti and dismissed the charges again. Sliwa claimed that he would seek damages in civil court.
Moreover, Michael Yannotti, a Gotti associate, was also charged with shooting Sliwa in the incident but was acquitted. However, Yannotti was sentenced to 20 years on an unrelated racketeering charge. Still, Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin said evidence suggested Yannotti was the shooter.
Curtis Sliwa Media Career
Curtis has been a radio broadcaster for a period of three decades, starting on WABC-AM, where he kicked off his career in 1990. In 1994, Silwa was hired by the city-owned and operated WNYC. However, some people, including Curtis, suggested that he was given access to the station by the newly elected Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whom he had supported in the 1993 mayoral race.
Moreover, he became a famous conservative radio talk show host. Since 1996, Silwa has hosted a lot of radio programs on WABC. In 200, he became the co-host, with attorney Ron Ruby, of the long-running Curtis and Kuby show in the morning. The show lasted for a period of eight years before Citadel Broadcasting replaced the team with Don Imus.
In addition, his partner, Ron Ruby, was a lawyer, with whom he had multiple times hosted the Curtis and Ruby weekday radio show at noon on WABC-AM in New York City. From June 2017, Silwa’s co-host was attorney and television commentator Eboni Williams. Recently, his co-host was Juliet Huddy, who joined the show in February 2019.
On December 1, 2018, the Curtis Sliwa Live program’s national syndication kicked off. WABC retained him until November of 2009 when his show was pulled down after a contract dispute. Curtis then joined WNYM-AM 970, where he hosted both the morning and evening drive-time shows. However, on January 2, 2014, Sliwa made his way back to WAC, replacing Rus LimLimbaugh,o moved to WOR-AM.
Prior to his mayoral campaign, a Bronx lawyer lodged a complaint claiming that Curtis was promoting his mayoral candidacy on his show, which would violate campaign laws. After Sliwa officially declared his candidacy in March of 2021, his radio program went on a break.
Curtis Sliwa’s Politics
In September 2016, Curtis launched a successful hostile takeover of the Reform Party of New York State. The party lost access to the ballot box in the November 2018 elections. In December of 2019, Silwa declared in an interview that he hated the Republican President of the United States, Donald Trump, calling him a screwball and a crackpot. After Trump left office in February 2021, Curtis left the Reform Party for the Republican Party.
Moreover, on March 8, 2020, Sliwa made clear that he would be running for mayor of New York City in 2021 as a Republican, seeking to become the 110th mayor of New York City. John Catsimatidis, a billionaire who had earlier mulled a mayoral run, endorsed Sliwa, who had become an employee of his after his 2020 purchase of WABC from Cumulus Media.
After they became friends, the primary race turned Sliwa and Fernando Mateo into bitter rivals. The Manhattan, Queens, and Bronx Republican parties endorsed Mateo, while the Staten Island and Brooklyn Republicans endorsed Sliwa. However, Sliwa criticized Mateo for donating to the 2017 re-election campaign of Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, and also accused him of breaking the law.
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Furthermore, during the campaign period, Mateo and Curtis clashed over loyalty to former President Donald Trump. Mateo believes that Trump won the 2020 presidential election, while Sliwa did not support Trump in either 2016 or 2020. The unofficial results showed that Sliwa won by 72%.
Curtis has run on a platform opposing the defunding of the police movement, supporting a property tax overhaul so that working-class residents would not pay higher taxes than wealthy citizens, keeping in place the specialized high school admissions test while increasing opportunities for vocational training in charter schools and focusing on fiscal restraint. Moreover, Sliwa opposes the killing of unwanted animals by making all animal shelters no-kill shelters.
Curtis Sliwa Age
How old is Curtis Sliwa? Sliwa is 69 years old as of 2023. He was born on March 26, 1954, in Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York City. In addition, Curtis usually celebrates his birthday on the 26th of March every year.
Curtis Sliwa Wife
Curtis is married to his long-time girlfriend, Nancy Regula, an attorney and animal advocate, in 2018. Currently, the two reside on the Upper West Side with their sixteen rescue cats.
Sliwa has been married four times. In 1981, he wed his second wife, Lisa Evers, at the time, she was National Director of the Guardian Angels and co-hosted a WABC-AM radio show Angels in The Mornin. She was also a martial arts expert who briefly trained with the World Wrestling Federation in 1986.
In 2000, Curtis married his third wife, Mary Galda, a former WABC employee who also served as the Guardian Angels national director. Mary and Sliwa have a son named Anthony Chester.
Moreover, Sliwa was in a relationship with Melinda Katz, the Queens County District Attorney, and they eventually separated in 2014. Together, they have two children. Melinda is named in a court case involving Sliwa accused by his ex-wife, Mary, of diverting money to Katz while still married to Mary as a part of the plan to build a nest egg with Katz. On February 14, 2015, the New York Daily News reported that Katz and Curtis had separated on Election Day 2014. Katz resides with their children in Forest Hills.
Curtis Sliwa Family
Curtis is the son of the late Francesca Sliwa, mother, and the late Chester Sliwa, father. He was born into a Catholic family of Polish and Italian descent in Canarsie, New York City. Sliwa has two sisters named Maria Sliwa and Aleta St. James Sliwa.
Curtis Sliwa’s Height
Sliwa is a man of average body stature and height. However, his height and weight details are currently under review.
Curtis Sliwa Net Worth
Sliwa has an estimated net worth of between $1 million – $5 million as of 2023. His income is mainly attributed to his successful career.
Curtis Sliwa Salary
Sliwa receives an estimated annual salary of between $55,500 – $120,200.
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